Guest and sponsored opinion pieces published on The Daily Blog, offering diverse perspectives within clear editorial guidelines.
The Swedish authorities have confirmed that time has run out to prosecute alleged right wing rapist Julian Assange and therefore the charges have been dropped. A jubilant Assange has appeared on the balcony of the Equadorean embassy in London and bizarrely claimed that this is a victory for freedom and, in an Orwellian misuse of language, a blow against the patriarchy.
Good on Mike King for attacking the gutless, shamefaced, official line on suicide as part of the problem not the solution. And cheers to The Daily Blog for acting as a forum on suicide with activists like Dave McPherson and Martyn Bradbury exposing the failures of the health system. While I agree that we need to change the official response to suicide, that should be based on what causes suicide.
What happened this week with Mike King quitting the suicide-prevention panel goes beyond politics and demands our focus as a country and as a community.
One of the great conundrums of Kiwi politics is the Peters problem. Unless there is a massive drop in votes for National, Labour will need NZ First’s assistance to form the next government. And that support will almost certainly come at the expense of the Greens, who are likely to be sidelined as part of any coalition arrangement.
SHUSH! DON’T TELL ANYBODY! Could this be the motto of New Zealand mainsteam media, as regards world news that is in any way critical of Israel?
What it said to me back then is that even though there are many Green MPs and policies that I love as a Maori, they’re still not ready to step into the space of being our champions yet. So I cancelled my membership.
Mother’s day has become a day of anguish for our family since our son Nicky Stevens died while in the legal care of the Waikato DHB. This last week has been particularly difficult as we have had to witness the death of another young person in similar circumstances to our son. Our Mental Health system is failing too many of our young people.
It is not acceptable that hard working Kiwis must face violence and abuse at work and it is not acceptable that our youth are so lost they think smashing up shops for no more than a couple of bucks is a good idea.
Lower Hutt, and especially Petone, has had some of the purest aquifer water anywhere in the world and people came from many miles around to fill their bottles at a communal tap. All that has disappeared, in an instant, as it were, and it doesn’t look as if we are ever going to get our pure water supply back. Clearly there are a lot of angry and upset people who are no longer able to access pure water, free of chemicals, for their families.
Some of the ridiculous things claimed by the mainstream media last week over the Labour’s Party list was really disappointing and reminded me how voters need to always be wary of media personalities more interested in putting their so called ‘style’ into the story rather than sticking to the facts.
TV3 Political Editor Paddy Gower is one such media personality.